Estimated to be 100 times heftier than our Sun, Eta Carinae is one of the most massive stars in our galaxy. It may also turn out to be one of the shortest-lived, because results for SN 2006gy suggest that it may be destroyed by a supernova at any time. Since Eta Carinae is located in our galaxy only about 7500 light years away, this would be a spectacular event. This Hubble telescope image of Eta Carinae shows a huge, billowing pair of gas and dust clouds, caused by a giant eruption about 160 years ago, when it became one of the brightest stars in the southern sky. Though the star released as much visible light as a supernova explosion, it survived the eruption. Somehow, the explosion produced two lobes and a large, thin equatorial disk, all moving outward at about 1.5 million miles per hour. A similar eruption is believed to have been generated by the star that later exploded as SN 2006gy. More Information at Hubble [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1996/23 ] (Credit: NASA/N.Smith & J.Morse)

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